


A Divine Intervention

by teeterss



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: First Time, M/M, a six thousand year slow burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-10
Updated: 2019-07-10
Packaged: 2020-06-25 22:13:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19754809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teeterss/pseuds/teeterss
Summary: There was no being in all of creation, bar the almighty herself, that had ever loved anything so dearly and for so long as Crowley had loved Aziraphale.





	A Divine Intervention

**Woodstock, 1969 AD**

It was an impressively large crowd. It had the sort of numbers that used to only mean something truly terrible was about to happen because only something truly terrible was a good enough reason for humans to stop working long enough to congregate. But thankfully over the last few centuries they’d all wised up a bit and realised they could all get together to have some _fun_ every now and again. And this crowd was certainly having a lot of fun. If the drugs and music weren’t doing it for them, the rampant amounts of sex going on certainly would. It was all very human. 

And judging by who Crowley had just spotted looking extremely out of place among the festival goers, Crowley was about to start having fun too.

“Aziraphale?” Crowley called out in genuine shock and just a little bit of genuine delight slipping through as well. The angel startled when he heard his name then beamed in that foolishly unbridled way of his when he spotted Crowley.

“Crowley! My word!” He eagerly rushed over to him while Crowley did that move of his where he lounged as nonchalantly as he could while having nothing to lounge against. “Thought I’d see you here. Lots of temptation to be had, not that they need much encouragement. You certainly look the part.” He nodded at the ensemble Crowley had spent literal days assembling. The snakeskin cuban heels had been made specially.

“And you, ah, don’t.” Crowley would happily go back in time and murder the inventor of the waistcoat if he could, as it was all he’d seen the angel in since the damn thing’s inception. Not that he looked especially displeasing in them but had he never heard of _variety_? 

“But what are you doing here anyway? I heard some noise about you being in the south of France.” Crowley, in fact, knew Aziraphale had been in the south of France. At a villa in Dordogne if you wanted to get into specifics. Crowley had a bag packed with his best dark linen suits waiting in his Bentley just in case he also just happened to fancy a jaunt to the region once he was through here. 

Keeping tabs on the angel had become a hobby of sorts over the years. If Aziraphale did insist on repeatedly getting himself into trouble then Crowley really had no other choice. He’d be damned if he was going to let Aziraphale get replaced by some stuffy jobsworth. Well, more damned than he already was.

The angel in question was looking a little sheepish. “Well, I _was_ there. I’ve just discovered this charming little vineyard that makes the most marvellous rosé, perfectly fruity without being too sweet. You really must come over to the shop and try it sometime --” he caught himself on the tangent and Crowley swallowed his smile. “Anyway, I got word from upstairs all this was going on and somehow your lot were behind it. I’m supposed to scupper whatever plans you had.”

“You know, I heard the exact same thing on my end. Apparently your lot are using it to spread peace and love.”

“And _your_ lot are apparently using it to spread hedonism and disorder.”

“Well, it’s nice to see both side’s incompetence outweighs the other,” Crowley said wryly.

“It’s actually a bit of a relief to know neither side had anything to do with it,” Aziraphale admitted. “I really didn’t want to be in any way responsible for this terrible music.” They both chuckled. 

They decided to not interfere together and found a quiet little spot for themselves on a grassy slope. After Crowley caught sight of Aziraphale’s uneasy expression at the muddy ground, he surreptitiously conjured a thick blanket for them to sit on. The angel’s warm smile of wordless thanks made the heinous act of kindness completely worth it.

“Oh this is lovely,” Aziraphale said contentedly as they looked out onto the crowd mingling around them. They were both avid people watchers and could spends hours at it. Or more accurately, centuries at it. After a time, a man and woman ambled by, both covered in flowers and with hair down past their waists. They were handing out daisy chains to everyone they passed. When they reached them, Crowley held up a hand to turn down the offer.

“Ah, not really my thing.”

“Oh, I’d like one, please!” Aziraphale said, all unreserved joy and excitement. The pair looked at him like they didn’t quite know what to make of him and his freshly pressed suit.

“He’s Joe Cocker’s manager,” Crowley lied, as easily as drawing breath. “Just came straight from a meeting trying to get the next record made.”

“Right on,” the man said nodding righteously and the woman placed a flower chain on Aziraphale’s head where it sat like a mockery of a halo. Aziraphale looked so chuffed with it Crowley kept the observation to himself.

“You know these humans really are wonderful,” Aziraphale sighed dreamily once they’d moved on. 

“It’s only a daisy chain,” Crowley sniffed. “ _I_ could make you one of those.”

“It’s not that. Well, not just that. It’s this whole thing. Can’t you feel all the love here?”

“You know I can’t, Angel.” 

“Right, right. Well, it’s practically bursting at the seams with it here.” He sighed again, gazing out at the people around him. “This entire generation. It really is a revolution of a kind, isn’t it? First we taught humans to be ashamed of themselves, to cover up and hide the bodies God gave them. Then they learned to hate and kill one another and went to war countless times for who knows what. But this lot, they’ve decided to ignore all that. They saw all that unpleasantness and just said ‘no thank you, that looks rubbish’ and chose to love instead. Love each other, love themselves. They just decided to _be_ better.” He turned to Crowley, smiling so happily his eyes were wet from it. “It really is just… _wonderful_.”

Crowley’s breath caught in his throat and he swallowed, for once not knowing what to say. It was rather wonderful but no demon worth his salt could go around _agreeing_ with that sort of thing. And really it was hard to appreciate the humans when Aziraphale was sitting next to him, with his ridiculous halo of daisies and his cream suit he wore to a muddy field and his heart so big he wept at the goodness of others. 

“I suppose you think I’m being very silly,” Aziraphale chuckled, dabbing at his eyes with his handkerchief.

“I think if you’re going to be silly, here’s the place to do it.” Crowley nodded at a half naked couple stumbling past them, clutching at each other and giggling so hard they could hardly stand upright. Aziraphale watched them go with unadulterated fondness. 

“Free love,” he said, smiling to himself. “What a wonderful sentiment.” Crowley’s eyes narrowed.

“Have you ever…. Y’know, with a human?”

Aziraphale tore his eyes away from the pair to look at him blankly. “Ever what?” Sex had never been something they’d discussed. The angel had never even alluded to being interested in it so Crowley had just assumed, or maybe just hoped for his own sake, his disinterest extended universally. But now, in a place where it was almost impossible to avoid, the idea of the alternative was making him feel faintly ill.

“ _You know_.” The words, many as there were for the act, suddenly escaped him. “Tried it out with a human. Seen what all the fuss is about.”

Aziraphale continued to stare at him, utterly nonplussed, until his eyes suddenly widened. “NO! Oh _Crowley_ , what a thing to ask!” Crowley might have asked him if he’d drowned any babies lately from how horrified he looked.

“You’re the one going on about how wonderful they are,” Crowley said, immediately defensive.

“I think they’re wonderful like a sunset is wonderful or-or how a baby foal learning to walk is wonderful. Not like… not because I-I want to…. _fornicate_ with them!” Aziraphale spluttered, clutching his handkerchief to his chest like a shield.

“So you haven’t then,” Crowley said, immensely satisfied, relaxing back into his calculatedly casual sprawl on the rug.

“Have _you_?”

The handful of one time lovers Crowley had taken over the many centuries flashed through his mind; all plump, all blonde and all beautiful. “Well, it’s my job to tempt them, isn’t it?”

Aziraphale looked like Crowley had just hit him. “Tempt them morally not with your-your... _wiles_!”

Crowley was starting to find the look of utter horror on Aziraphale’s face rather funny. He grinned, wicked and charming, just to make the angel go an even deeper shade of red. “Isn’t that the same thing?” 

“It most certain is not!”

“Come on, Angel, I’ve done worse.” 

Aziraphale opened his mouth to say something then stopped himself. He closed his eyes, straightened his already ridiculously rigid posture and said “You’re just saying all this to upset me.”

“No, I’m not.” Crowley’s smirk slipped a little. “Alright, look, we’ll talk about something else.”

“I’m sorry, Crowley, but I don’t know how to segue from you bedding half the human race into something more pleasant! Very few subjects come to mind!” Crowley really hated it when the angel got sarcastic. It meant he was genuinely angry and it was so rare he always forgot how best to fix it.

“Angel… really, there weren’t all that many--”

“Look at me,” Aziraphale said, cutting him off. “I’ve a thousand things I should be doing and I’m sitting around wasting the day.” He had an overly forced cheer to his voice that was almost worse than the sarcasm. “I really should be getting on.”

“Let’s just forget I said anything,” Crowley said, panicking slightly as he watched Aziraphale get to his feet and trying desperately not to show it. “I’ll get us some strawberries and cream, that’s your favourite!”

Aziraphale paused, his back still to him. “Sometimes you make it all too easy, Crowley.”

Crowley swallowed, hating the tone in his voice. He’d only ever heard it once before, years earlier, in the Bentley in Soho. It had sounded like goodbye then too. “Make what easy?”

“To forget you’re a demon.”

Passers by might have been shocked to see a man dressed in a three piece suit disappear from thin air right in front of them. And perhaps even more so when a moment later his companion also vanished, this time leaving their blanket, along with a delicately crafted daisy chain that sat upon it, on fire. But thankfully what was considered shocking in that particular field on that particular day was all relative and these oddities weren’t the most unusual or interesting thing those passers by would see that day. It was Woodstock after all.

**London, Present day, 46 hours after the thwarting of the Apocalypse.**

The thing about stopping the world from ending is that the world just keeps on going. It carried on spinning on its seemingly precarious axis, slightly changed but the same in all the ways that count. The humans were doing what humans do best; carrying on like nothing had happened. Normality was comforting, far more comforting than facing whatever had happened in the last week. And why shouldn’t they follow suit? There was really nothing stopping them anymore. And what was normal for Crowley and Aziraphale was getting roaringly drunk in the bookshop.

Well, it had started in the bookshop, then Aziraphale had insisted he had the perfect bottle for the occasion upstairs in his flat and Crowley, who hadn’t enjoyed the four minutes and forty-two seconds of being left on his own, had upped and followed him.

The night had worn on long enough to contest with the morning. The last dregs of champagne were flat and tepid in the bottom of their glasses and Crowley’s inebriation had reduced to a faint buzz, just enough to make him even more loose limbed than usual in his sprawl at Aziraphale’s table.

“You remember that God awful pub just off London bridge we used to go to?” he said, apropos of nothing, with only a slight slur in his voice. “Fuck, what was it called?” He snapped his fingers repeatedly as though the action could command the memory to resurface. “The- the… something to do with an animal… The Duck’s Foot or some such thing.”

“The Boar’s Head Inn,” Aziraphale said with a fond chuckle. The night had been such that even his usually impeccable appearance was slightly askew and he sat head in hand, resting on an elbow at the table. “I remember because you once asked the proprietor whether the ale they served was actual boar p-- um, urine.” 

“That’s right!” Crowley rolled his head, grinning at the ceiling. “God, if I had to live in a time before wine again I might’ve just gone ahead and _let_ the world end.”

Aziraphale snorted then brought his hand to his mouth like he’d just caught himself saying something very wicked. “Now really, Crowley,” he scolded, trying and spectacularly failing to repress his smile. “That really is the very embodiment of ‘too soon’.”

Crowley grinned back at him and took up the nearly empty glass before him. “Well, thank Satan for the creation of merlot.” 

“Now you want me toasting Satan?” Aziraphale raised a disapproving eyebrow but the little smile still tugging at the corner of his mouth betrayed how much he wanted to do just that.

“Come on, Angel, it won’t be the most rebellious thing you’ve done this week.” Aziraphale laughed, their glasses clinked and Crowley’s heart swelled.

They must have done this hundreds of times over the centuries; late nights with wine-stained smiles, the conversation easy even when everything else seemed hard, the thrill of deception on both sides making it all the more enjoyable. It had struck Crowley, when coming close to the end, that it was these moments above all others throughout history that he treasured more than anything.

“What are you thinking?” Crowley asked, interrupting the comfortable silence that had fallen between them. Aziraphale had been gazing at the same spot on the table cloth for the past 5 minutes, running a finger over the rim of his glass to elicit a humming whine. He blinked, his finger stilling, and sat up a little straighter. 

“Forgive me, my dear, I was miles away.” A blush had sprung to the apple of his cheeks making him look even more painfully endearing.

“Anywhere nice?” Aziraphale shot him that reserved smile of his where he didn’t want to find Crowley amusing but couldn’t help himself. 

“I was just wondering…. No, it’s silly. Shall I open another bottle?” He made to get up and Crowley beckoned a hand to stop him.

“I thought I was supposed to be the tease here. You can’t dangle that in front of me then just drop it!”

Aziraphale settled back in his chair with a slight huff. “It’s not nearly as interesting as you think it is. Just a silly daydream.” Crowley beckoned at him again to get to the point. “Alright, alright, well, I _suppose_ I was just thinking that if everything really _had_ gone belly up or I had been smote into non-existence, would I have been shuffling off with any regrets. I’ve had over six thousand years on this planet and yet I feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface of it all.”

“That’s the normal reaction when facing your mortality, I suppose,” Crowley said. “Not something we’ve really had to consider before. I mean, for you it’s a valid concern but I’ve tried to keep up with as many human trends as I can. Even tried a thing called ‘zumba’ the other month which was… well, let’s say it was an experience and leave it at that.”

“See, I’m not like you,” Aziraphale said, rather mournfully. “I feel like I’ve lived wrapped in cotton wool. I can’t imagine you regret anything.” 

Crowley glanced at him then quickly looked away. “Well, I wouldn’t say that.” He cleared his throat. “But why not tell me some of the things you regret not doing and we can see about doing them now. We’ve both found our schedules rather cleared out, after all.”

“Like a bucket list?” Aziraphale asked, perking up. 

“Let’s try to avoid calling it that.”

“I’ll fetch my fountain pen!”

An hour and a lot of contention later, they’d got just shy of nowhere. “Have you taken ‘Learn the elf languages from Lord of the Rings’ off the list?” Crowley demanded, craning his neck to squint across the table at the paper Aziraphale was hunched over. “Angel, listen to me, have you taken it off the list?”

“Yes, yes,” Aziraphale huffed. “Stop yelling. But I really don’t see why I have to.”

“You do, you really do. Trust me.”

“Fine, fine. Well, that brings us back down to three,” Aziraphale said, peering down at the mess that was the heavily edited and ink smeared list. “Dear me, we haven’t really got many, have we? You’ve vetoed just about everything else.”

“Read them back, then.” Crowley said, tossing his glasses on the table to rub at his eyes. “Think I’m still iffy on one of them.”

“Right, number one; buy a lapped top.”

“It’s laptop, Angel,” Crowley drawled, correcting him for what might have been the fifth time.

“Right, right.” The paper was scribbled on again. “So, one; buy a laptop-”

“But you’re to check with me what websites you go on before hand,” Crowley interrupted again. “There’s a lot of things not fit for an angel, or any creature, to see on there.”

“Yes, yes,” Aziraphale muttered, pointedly not writing that part down. “Two; see another film at the pictures.”

“You keep saying “another”,” Crowley interjected. “Have you ever even seen a film before?”

“I’ll have you know I _have_ seen one!” Aziraphale said indignantly. “The scary one with the train.”

“Train? I don’t even… Not Murder on The Orient from the 70’s?”

“Oh no,” Aziraphale pulled a face, “I wouldn’t see that. You know, that... train one. The one with the train.”

“You don’t mean L'arrivée d'un train en gare de La Ciotat?” Crowley asked, genuinely appalled. “That came out a hundred years ago. And all it was was a bloody train pulling into a bloody station!” 

“Well, it was jolly frighty,” Aziraphale said, disgruntled. “It looked like it was coming right at me. It put me off the whole idea for a while.”

“Right, this Thursday you and I are going to the cinema. I know a place that puts on the old classics. I’ll introduce you to the concept of gourmet popcorn, too, you’ll like that.”

“Really?” Aziraphale looked utterly thrilled which made Crowley feel utterly smug. “Oh Crowley, how lovely, thank you!”

“Right, come on,” Crowley said briskly to mask his blush, “Number three.”

“Right, yes, number three; go to Las Vegas.”

“Well, the only way this one can happen is if I come with you. Can’t have an angel roaming around the City of Sin unsupervised. I did some of my best work there.”

“I only want to go for the magic shows,” Aziraphale insisted. “And you _hate_ human magic, you really don’t have to trouble yourself.”

“Angel, if I don’t come, you’ll only go and get yourself into some sort of trouble and then I’ll have to come get you out of it. Saves time if we just go together.” Aziraphale smiled at him from under his lashes as he happily added “with Crowley” to number three.

“Anything else?” Crowley asked.

“There was _one_ other thing,” Aziraphale said after a long moment, tone suspiciously indifferent and deliberately not meeting Crowley’s eye.

Crowley’s yellow eyes narrowed. “Look, if there’s another sodding fantasy language you want to learn, you can just forget it, Angel.”

“No, no. Nothing like that.” Aziraphale made a show of straightening his stationary, still avoiding Crowley’s eye. “Well it’s um… hah, see, we’ve actually discussed it before, a few years ago now. I’m afraid I rather overreacted about it at the time. That being the... umm activity in question, as it were.”

“Oh,” Crowley understood the angel’s waffle all too easily and began to feel vaguely light headed. “That.” They’d both pointedly avoided speaking about what happened back in 69’ or any mention of sex ever since. Crowley suddenly felt terrifyingly sober.

“You must have thought me such a prude. Kicking off like that at the mere mention of… well, you know.”

“No more than usual,” Crowley said, attempting a joke.

“And I’m sorry if I was a little stern with you back then,” Aziraphale looked so sincerely remorseful Crowley couldn’t stand to meet his eye. “You rather caught me off guard.”

“I honestly don’t remember it all that well,” Crowley lied. “And if you were it’s not like I’d be upset over it.” Another lie. Crowley had been in such a foul mood after the incident that he yelled at his house plants, for so long and so unpleasantly, that one somehow managed to willingly push itself off it’s shelf to shatter on the floor. Crowley had felt so rotten about the whole thing he repotted it and anonymously donated it to the Royal Botanic Gardens.

“Oh good,” Aziraphale said, smiling in relief. “That has been weighing on me for some time.”

“So you _are_ interested in it then,” Crowley said, aiming for a casual tone and ending up somewhere around constipated. “The, ahh, sex, that is.”

“Well, it's something to cross off the list, isn’t it?” Aziraphale said, his cheeks now a flaming red. “And it’s not like there haven’t been _offers_.”

If Crowley had a fraction less self control in that moment the dining table they were sitting at would have exploded. “ _Offers_?” he said, sounding like he’d just swallowed nails. “From _who_?”

“Well, no need to act so surprised,” Aziraphale huffed, slightly miffed, completely misreading the extremely strained expression on Crowley’s face. “And I came jolly close to… you know, doing the deed at one point.” Crowley might have blacked out for a moment because all the blood in his body suddenly surged to his face, blinding him momentarily. 

“Are you alright, my dear?” Aziraphale asked sounding concerned. “You’re looking a little peaky.”

“What happened?” Crowley managed to get out between his grinding teeth. 

“With what?”

“With the-- with the person you nearly… _fornicated_ with!” Crowley half spluttered, half roared.

“Oh, right.” Aziraphale’s flush had now crept all the way down his neck. “I’m not sure it’s proper to kiss and tell like that, Crowley.”

“Kiss and…” Crowley was going to throttle them. Whoever this person was who dared even _touch_ Aziraphale, regardless of the period of time it happened, Crowley was going to track them down and _murder_ them. “Just tell me… please.”

“Well, seeing as you said please...” Aziraphale paused for a long period, then went and fetched another bottle of wine, pouring himself a generous glass and downing half of it, before finally beginning. “As you know, I was a patron of a gentleman’s club a few centuries back where I spent many a happy day. There were some really wonderful chaps there, many extremely talented in the arts, but there was this one fellow who had just the most _exquisite_ way with words. Poetry mostly, and _what_ poetry it was. But like with so many of these poor creative types, he suffered horribly with self-doubt and feelings of inadequacy, so I offered my services of encouragement.” 

“What does that mean?” Crowley demanded, momentarily snapping out of his rage spiral. “‘Services of encouragement’? What does that even _mean_ , Angel?”

“You know, giving words of encouragement. Offering to look over his work, keeping his motivation up, giving critiques. That sort of thing.”

“And what was his name?”

“Oh no, Crowley, that _is_ too far.”

“Fine,” Crowley conceded while making a mental note to look into the old records of The Hundred Guineas Club at the next available moment for any bad poets. “Carry on.”

“Well, we had a very nice time of it. He would send me his lovely poems then we’d discuss them over lunch. It was all very amicable. Then one occasion he suggested we go back to his rooms as he had more work there to show me and I obliged as I was eager to hear them. I really should have noticed something was going on as he read it out loud to me and he was so _nervous_ , bless him. Anyway, it was, as always, very lovely -- reminiscent of Blake -- then he tells me I was the inspiration behind it!” 

Crowley was vaguely aware of his fingernails digging rather painfully into the meat of his palms but he barely even registered it over the ringing in his ears. “And what was this poem about?” he forced out.

“Oh, it was all about how I inspired the stars and such like.” Aziraphale laughed awkwardly. “It was rather flattering to be the subject of such a thing.” Crowley might have agreed if he were capable of human speech at that moment. 

“So, I was trying to tell him how honoured I was when he suddenly took my hand and said, now I’ll never forget this, he said ‘the heavens themselves would weep at your loveliness’.” Aziraphale laughed again, as though it was genuinely funny, not something that was currently ruining Crowley’s life. “And then he kissed me.”

“And then you… you did what?” Crowley choked out, barely making sense but unable to do any better in his current state.

“I just started laughing, much to my chagrin,” Aziraphale admitted. “I mean, really, telling an angel that stuff about the heavens? It was just so unwittingly comical. Think I upset him quite a bit, the poor chap. I don’t think you’re supposed to laugh during a kiss. He certainly didn’t like it. Got a bit huffy actually, asked me to leave.”

“And would you have done it?”

“Done what?” 

“For Christ sake, Angel, would you have slept with him?” Crowley demanded, sounding half strangled. “He clearly wanted you, did you want him?”

“Oh.” Aziraphale polished off the rest of his wine in a single gulp before he replied. “Well, of course as I said it was very flattering to be thought of like that, and he was really a lovely fellow, but to me that... act is an expression of love. It’s a rather lovely and _rambunctious_ way of expressing it but to do it with someone who I didn’t feel for in that way, it always just seemed wrong.”

For the first time in around ten minutes the vice like tightness in Crowley’s chest loosened a little. “Ah, well, that’s… that’s that.”

“And there was also the… the other thing,” Aziraphale said, staring down at the empty glass in his hands.

“Which was…”

Aziraphale gave a quiet little laugh then lifted his head to smile at him. “Well, he wasn’t you, Crowley.”

If someone had run Crowley over with his own Bentley he would have felt less winded. He sat back in his chair, stunned, the cogs slowly turning as he tried to comprehend what he’d just heard. 

Love wasn’t something he had much experience in. He vaguely remembered God’s love, her overwhelming grace and absolution like sun on the skin, but it had vanished the moment he’d questioned it long, long ago. He’d never been able to feel love in others like the angel could. All he’d ever been able to feel was his own, as humble and insufficient as that felt, and it had only ever been pointed in one direction-- towards Aziraphale. Over the centuries he had come to realise, slowly and astonishingly, that his affection for the angel went beyond friendship. It had been hard to spot at first, the transition from friendship to amorous, burning devotion, and Crowley suspected it had happened far sooner than he had noticed. He’d had nothing to compare it to, after all. 

It had grown over the centuries, nurtured by all the moments there’d shared together, all the small acts of kindness the angel had shown him. Now, a love like his for Aziraphale went beyond the familiar and the unconditional, far exceeding what humans could even comprehend as love. There was no being in all of creation, bar the almighty herself, that had ever loved anything so dearly and for so long as Crowley had loved Aziraphale. A demon’s love being the strongest of all, it was like a cosmic punchline. A far crueler joke was that he knew, or at least thought he knew, that the angel’s love for him only went so far. 

Aziraphale loved every creature he met, he was, after all, a being of the stuff. Unlike the rest of Heaven, who’d pick and choose who deserved it and when, Aziraphale’s love knew no discrimination or clause. He even loved a demon, with a love that brought no conditions or stipulation, just open friendship. Crowley had been tempted on many occasions throughout the many years they’d known each other to ask for more. Hours could be whiled away with Crowley dreaming about how easy it would be for him to close the gap between them, a distance that was so small and yet felt like a wide chasm, but the reality was that he would never ask for it. To do so would have been madness, for how could he when he’d already been given far more than he could ever deserve, more than any decent creature would ever give him? 

But to now be faced with the actual possibility that the angel’s love might extend to meet Crowley’s, that there might be a chance for more, he felt completely and woefully unprepared.

“Oh Crowley, do say something,” Aziraphale finally said into the pregnant silence, his expression pained and pleading. “This is becoming torturous.” 

Crowley felt flayed open, raw and defenceless, like an exposed nerve. He dearly wished he still had his glasses on so at least he’d have some form of barrier between him and Aziraphale's open, expecting gaze. “Well, I think-- I think that’s.... good.”

“Good?” Aziraphale stared at him like he genuinely thought he might have gone mad. “Are you saying that me being in love with you is… good?” 

Heat crept up Crowley’s neck, embarrassment momentarily overriding his blind panic. “Well, of course it sounds bad when you say it like that! God, only you’re able to get me to act like this much of an idiot, Angel!”

Kicked puppies looked surly compared to the expression currently on Aziraphale’s face. “Sorry about that.”

“No, don’t be--” Crowley took a deep breath. Funny how he’d faced down the apocalypse and the wrath of heaven and hell and yet it was this moment right here, looking into the face of the angel he loved and who just might love him back, that he felt truly terrified. 

“The truth is I want say something terribly witty and clever right now, something that’d really knock you off your feet, but I can’t. I’ve been searching for the right words to tell you how I feel for centuries, under some mad delusion that one day I’d have the guts to actually say them to you, but I’ve always come up short. There are nearly seven thousand sodding languages on this planet and none even come close to properly expressing what I feel for you. I think the greeks came closest but I’m not trusting the greeks with something as important as this.”

“I don’t need witty or clever, Crowley,” Aziraphale said, his eyes slightly watery where they were crinkled in a soft smile. “I’ll take whatever you’ll give me.”

Crowley laughed, inexplicably finding his own eyes prickling. “The thing is, Angel, I think I’d rather like to give you everything. I’m yours, I’ve been yours for a long while now, actually, I just never got around to telling you.”

Aziraphale let out a laugh like the release of a deep breath he’d been holding for too long, his wet eyes shining and joyful. He wordlessly opened his arms and Crowley was out of his seat and in them so fast the chair might have been made from crucifixes. 

A kiss that is centuries in the making is not like any other kiss. There is simply too much built up around it to let it be anything but extraordinary. It is a kiss that is starved, so achingly hungry that it is all consuming. Like air shared under water, it is so urgent that to stop would be to drown. There is an eternity in itself in that single glorious act of love. It is also, at its heart, shockingly simple.

“Angel, angel, _angel_ ,” Crowley whispered against his lips between kisses, loathed to pull too far away. He kissed him with more fervour than he’d done anything in his life, greedily swallowing every gasp and moan that escaped the angel. It was vicious, from a longing left unattended for too long, but Aziraphale, as always, bent to accept him, claws and all. 

“Crowley, darling,” Aziraphale said breathlessly after a while, trying to pull back from the kiss Crowley had very little interest in stopping. “This is wonderful, deliriously wonderful, really, but I do fear for the chair.” It was only then Crowley realised at some point he’d crawled entirely into the angel’s lap, knees slotted against his in the cramped space between the thin wooden arms, which were creaking warningly. The rest of him was draped over Aziraphale, leaving as little space between them as possible.

“Damn the chair,” he muttered, carding his fingers feverishly through Aziraphale’s maddeningly soft hair. “I’ll buy you a new one, I’ll buy you a thousand chairs.”

“Well, I was thinking--” He was cut off once again by Crowley demandingly reclaiming his lips but he pressed a hand against his chest to stop him. “No, Crowley, _listen_ to me.” He was so uncharacteristically firm Crowley had no choice but to pause and listen. “It’s just that there’s a lovely four-poster in the other room that would be far more comfortable.” That actually made Crowley sit back on his heels.

“Are you asking me to bed, Angel?”

Aziraphale’s flush darkened and his kiss bitten lips quirked into a bashful but bold smile. “I rather suppose I am.” 

Even a saint couldn’t have denied him, and Crowley was just about as far from sainthood as it was possible to get.

The move to the bed was a graceless, stumbling thing. Neither seemed willing to stop touching the other long enough for competency, leading to a lot of awkward, blind fumbling. But there was laughter too, incredulous and joyful.

When they tumbled onto the soft bedding, Crowley first, pulling the angel on top of him, he thought of how stupid he’d been all these years, going for the flash, the sharp, the cool steel over comfort. The angel had the right idea about hedonism, all opulence and luxury. Crowley writhed into it as they kissed, down into the softness of the obscenely lush sheets and up against the gentle tenderness of the angel above him and all his sweetness, until he couldn’t stand it any longer.

“Let me-- let me do it,” he gasped against Aziraphale’s mouth, rolling them over in an ungainly manner until he straddled him. He licked into his mouth one last time, then sat back, already bereft of his taste. He was struck, suddenly, at the sight of the angel beneath him; his cotton hair standing at odds, his eyes slightly glassy as he panted in a perfectly debauched way and the delicious flush that ran all the way down to the coy glimpse of chest that his askew bowtie betrayed. Crowley’s hands, when they reached for him, shook. 

“Darling, it’s alright,” Aziraphale murmured, taking Crowley’s clumsy hands in his own, stopping him from his fumbled attempt at freeing him of his buttons. “No need for nerves, it’s just me.”

“Exactly,” Crowley said with a bark of humourless laughter. “It’s _you_.”

“Oh, my darling.” He kissed the knuckles of Crowley’s trembling hand, then pressed it against his cheek.

“You’ve waited for this, for me, for so long. I just want it to be perfect.” 

“Of course, it’ll be perfect,” Aziraphale laughed, his smile far kinder and warmer than anything Crowley remembered of God’s grace. “It’s _you_.”

There was very little Crowley could do in the face of that but collapse against him and kiss him anew. He plundered him, licking over teeth and tongue, every corner of his mouth he could reach. He wanted to consume every inch of his angel, for nothing of Aziraphale to be kept from him, every atom completely and utterly _his_.

Aziraphale held him through it all, his far steadier hands smoothing over his shoulders, his back, his hips, until they slid under the hem of his shirt and finally touched skin. Crowley shuddered at the contact, already too strung out from just kissing, and broke their kiss just to gasp.

“Got you,” Aziraphale whispered into his temple as Crowley panted against his neck. “I’ve got you, darling.” Crowley groaned gutturally, the affection nearly as overwhelming as the touch, and began rutting against the angel’s thigh, seeking any form of friction. He felt born again, like his body was brand new once more and through Aziraphale he was only just discovering its many wonders.

“Let’s get these off,” Aziraphale said, tugging at his shirt, his voice a steady anchor through Crowley’s haze. “Let me get a look at you.”

It was unlike any other play at seduction Crowley had participated in over the years. That had always been seamless, almost choreographed, with Crowley utterly in control, regardless of which role he took. With Aziraphale, there was no hint of control. Their attempts at divesting each other of their clothing were uncoordinated and extraordinarily inelegant. Crowley got stuck with the bundle of his shirt and waistcoat trapped over his head and Aziraphale laughed breathlessly when he nearly fell off the bed trying to free him of his trousers while he still had his shoes on. It was a mess, but a glorious one. They laughed into each other’s mouths, falling into each other, when finally, finally, there were no barriers left between them.

Neither seemed able or willing to do anything but touch the other for a while. It was overwhelming to have so much exposed after surviving on nothing but a glancing touch here and there for so very long. It was directionless, sensual but undemanding, as they simply explored one another with genuine curiosity and awe.

Now Crowley knew what it was to feel the angel on his skin, he didn’t know how he’d ever lived without it. He’d quickly decided that the expanse of creamy white skin from Aziraphale’s collar bone to his shoulder was his favourite place in the entire universe. He sucked a bruise there just to see his own mark left on him. A claim of ownership as much as it was to just know this was _real_.

“Darling, you have freckles everywhere,” Aziraphale murmured against him, teeth grazing the base of his neck in a blunt bite. “An entire galaxy on your skin. So beautiful.” 

Crowley would have liked to spend hours, centuries even, just exploring every inch of him. He fully intended to do just that at a time in the very near future, but now the more pressing issue was that he felt like he’d been hard for every second of those six thousand years and it was becoming near impossible to ignore. 

“Need you,” Crowley’s voice cracked and he shuddered as Aziraphale pressed their foreheads together. “Angel, I need you so much.”

“Show me,” Aziraphale breathed against his lips. “Show me how I can prove to you how much I adore you.”

Crowley let out a dry little sob and tugged at the angel until he was over him, blanketing him in his embrace. When they slotted together and both their urgently weeping cocks slid together, they groaned in unison.

“Angel, if I don’t get you inside me in the next thirty seconds, this shop might go up in flames again,” Crowley gasped, nails digging into the meat of Aziraphale’s shoulder blade as he rocked stiltedly against him.

“R-right,” Aziraphale stammered. “I don’t have any, um, any stuff to do that, though.”

“If you think I’m above using a miracle to speed this along, you are very much mistaken,” Crowley said, and grunted when, an instant later, he was slick and ready.

“My _word_ ,” Aziraphale breathed out above him and Crowley wanted to laugh at the idea that he’d ever thought the angel was uninterested in sex. To look at him now, caging him against the mattress, eyes slightly wild with hunger, chest heaving with desire and need, Crowley had never seen a more sexual sight in his life.

He took Aziraphale’s hand in his own, hurriedly guiding it between where his legs were spread around him, shifting so he could feel his new wetness. “I want you right here.” He eagerly watched Aziraphale’s eyes widen, his own slit pupils expanding, as the angel slid two fingers effortlessly into him. 

“How does it feel?” Aziraphale asked, genuine curiosity and awe in his voice.

“Tingles,” Crowley grunted. “Want more.”

Two was replaced with three, with Aziraphale up on his elbow so he could start fucking into him with it, teasing and slow, just testing boundaries. It felt maddening, almost surreal. Crowley had done this to himself so many times while imagining it was the angel’s fingers in his stead, that to finally have the real thing left him nearly untethered. 

“You’ve no idea what you do to me,” Crowley gasped, head tossed back on the pillow, holding onto the angel’s shoulders for dear life.

“I think I’ve some idea,” Aziraphale said with a strained laugh, head bowed between them to watch where they met. Crowley pulled him by his hair into another kiss and tried to pour into it everything he’d always longed to say but never been able, his desperation exacerbated in no small way by the fingers still fucking him open. Aziraphale met his kiss with a tenderness no creature could ever deserve. It was to be held and torn apart simultaneously and Crowley could stand it no longer.

“Please,” he gasped, “please just… just have me.” He felt empty and gaping when Aziraphale’s fingers left him, so he pulled him in close, caging him in with his long legs wrapped around him, unwilling to let even light in between them.

“Look at you,” Aziraphale said, brushing a strand of Crowley’s fringe out of his eyes and staring down at him with unimaginable wonder. “So much light in you, so vibrant. Sometimes I thought it’d blind me.” Crowley inhaled sharply, then reached up to kiss him because he couldn’t bear to hear it, not when his chest already felt full to bursting. 

That’s how it was when they were finally joined, wrapped so tightly in each other that the final step didn’t seem all that momentous in the end. Aziraphale slid into him with ease, pushing in like a sigh and Crowley rolled up to meet him. The feel of it bore all the way through him, filling the last remaining corners of him that Aziraphale hadn't already taken root. All the previous awkwardness melted away as they moved as one. They knew each other’s bodies like it had been burned into them since before their own creation. 

Aziraphale rocked into him, slowly at first. Long, deep thrusts that Crowley could feel in the back of his teeth. Then he shifted his hold to grip Crowley under the shoulders, getting more traction to drive into him, harder and faster, while pulling him back down onto him. There was no patience left for restraint, on either side. 

“Like _that_ ,” Crowley groaned, teeth clicking on _tt_. Being held like that meant there was little he could do but cling to Aziraphale and accept everything he gave him. His hands skid over the angel’s sweat slick back, mapping him out like a blind man, desperate to feel, to be grounded by something. His cock was trapped uselessly between them, slapping against the tacky smears of precome on his belly but he didn’t need to be touched. He was beyond speech, beyond function, his world entirely narrowed to the point where they were connected while he hurtled towards completion. 

Some events are so monumental that it seems only right the rest of the universe should sit up and pay attention. It does sometimes, when things are fair, but for the majority of the time, the rest of the universe really just doesn’t give a damn. An angel and a demon making love for the first time above a little bookshop they’d both loved since the moment they’d been in it together, that should be paid attention to. 

But as Crowley pulled Aziraphale down into a kiss that was all but teeth and tongue, his entire body tensing then shuddering through his release, he had the brief thought of how very glad he was that this was theirs and theirs alone.

Aziraphale followed him soon after, moaning into Crowley’s mouth as he spent inside him. He continued to rock shallowly into him for a while after, until it became bearable for them to lose the connection. Then they stretched out next to each other, tangled together in the sheets like a lovers knot. 

“We really are the biggest idiots in the universe,” Crowley murmured into the quiet space between them after a while, fingertips trailing over the expanse of the angels back. “How many times could we have done that over the centuries if we’d both wised up a bit sooner? Big besotted idiots, that’s what we are.” 

Aziraphale gave him a soft smile and took Crowley's hand in his own to slot their fingers together. “To be fair we did have two rather big reasons keeping us apart.”

“If I’d’ve known we could be together like this, I’d’ve rebelled again centuries ago to be with you.” Aziraphale glanced at him, eyebrow raised. “I’m serious, Angel,” he insisted.

“Would that’ve made you a risen demon, then?” He had the cheek to have a smile tugging at his lips. 

“Doesn’t quite roll off the tongue as well, does it?” Crowley gave in and grinned back. “What about you, you a fallen angel now?”

Aziraphale looked like he was giving the question that Crowley had intended as a joke some actual thought and Crowley felt his chest tighten. “I prefer besotted idiot, I think,” he said finally with a wry smile and Crowley laughed, feeling lighter than air.

It was a conversation perhaps too heavy for the easy quiet of their love bed, but the truth was Crowley had fallen twice in his life, both times accidental and both equally monumental. Once was from heaven and the other was for Aziraphale. The difference between them being that Crowley had never once regretted loving the angel, not for a second, not even when it had hurt the worst. And laying there in the sleepy sheets with him now, the first rays of morning sun streaming in through the blinds to bathe them both in golden light, he knew he never would.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm on [twitter](https://twitter.com/thorlokid) :^)


End file.
